When Rasmus Henning DNF’d with cramps, Rasmus Petraeus combined a race-best swim, 6th-best bike and 3rd best run to win the swim-shortened Challenge Aarhus half; Caroline Steffen devastated the women’s field

Balazs Csoke of Hungary won his first Ironman and Kate Bevilaqua of Australia won her second IM title and first race of 2011 at Ironman Korea.

Jose Almagro, by 3 minutes, and Esther Leal, by 5 minutes, take home town victories at TriStar111 Madrid

Miquel Blanchart of Spain and Lucy Gossage of Great Britain won the third round of the TriGrandPrix series, the half Ironman distance event in Navarra

Marino Vanhoenacker smashed the all-time Ironman record of 7:50:27 set by Luc Van Lierde in 1997 and recorded a stunning 7:45:58 at the 2011 Kärnten Ironman Austria. Mary Beth Ellis took the women’s title in 8:43:34.

Cameron Brown leads an all Kiwi men’s podium ahead of Guy Crawford and Kieran Doe; Joanna Lawn tops the women and makes Korea 70.3 an all-Kiwi winner’s sweep

Commerzbank, the main sponsor of the very successful Commerzbank Triathlon Team announced that they would not extend the sponsorship past 2011 and would focus on soccer instead.

After an accident in 2009 John Carson was destined to be wheelchair bound but he was determined to walk again. He has since finished Ironman Lake Placid, the Boston Marathon and Ironman Coeur D’Alene, but that one was his swan song of sorts.

Boulder, CO based amateur Doug MacLean was the top age grouper at Ironman Coeur D’Alene and managed to break into the top 10 overall. Moving forward though he’ll be starting with a Pro card and much tougher competition.

Philip Skiba is a cancer survivor, ex-volleyball player, enthusiastic runner and Clydesdale triathlete, osteopathic physician, author of triathlon training books and software who’s coached world champs Joanna Zeiger and Catriona Morrison.

Liz Blatchford took a convincing win at the recent 5i50 Liverpool Triathlon and was quite happy with her performance there. She also raced the Rev3 Quassy but still has aspirations to make the British Olympic team.

Even on his next-to-last day, none of us would have been surprised to see him swing his feet out over the side of his hospital bed, stand up, shake out the kinks and stride off down the hall, with his bare ass hanging out of his gown, trailing tubes and wires and shedding cancer cells like fleas.

We stumbled upon the new Cervelo S5 aero road bike, the Zerod Vanguard wetsuit, the Leg Lube shaving gel, the Headsweats visibility hat, the Butterfinger Buzz bar and funky cufflinks from Gotham Smith.

ITU racing is compelling, the athletes are superb, it’s good, hard, clinical, scrubbed, white bread, racing. Until this past weekend, when it finally, happily, developed an edge.

In timed racing, SRAM’s Force has been the forgotten gruppo. Sandwiched between Shimano’s Ultegra and SRAM’s own well received Red group, Force is the homecoming queen that nobody thought to ask to the prom.

Andy Potts and Rebeccah Wassner won the 7th running of the Philadelphia Insurance Triathlon and here is a gallery from that day in the City of Brotherly Love in 2011.

Craig Alexander came, saw and conquered the 2011 Ironman Coeur D’Alene in course record time but had a tough battle with Maik Twelsiek all day. Julie Dibens took the women’s title in record time despite a bit of a struggle at the end.

Raynard Tissink of South Africa holds off USA’s Michael Lovato by 55 seconds; Kelly Williamson’s sizzling run dominates Ironman 70.3 Buffalo Springs Lake

Stuart Hayes overtook Fraser Cartmell on the run and Liz Blatchford took over the lead on the bike and held off Anna Cleaver on the run at Liverpool UK 5150

Andy Potts continues to win, Rebeccah Wassner ascends to the podium’s top step, each against strong fields at the Philadelphia Insurance Triathlon. Potts and Alicia Kaye will sit atop the Toyota Cup standings.

2011 Abu Dhabi Triathlon champion Frederik Van Lierde added an Ironman title to his resume with a superb performance at Ironman France. German Pro Silvia Felt also won her first Ironman title in Nice.

Alistair Brownlee battled back from a flat to take his second consecutive European Championships, just ahead of his brother Jonathan; Emmie Charayron of France runs away from the women’s field

The USA’s Hunter Kemper and Chantell Widney of Canada won the men’s and women’s titles in the second round of the 2011 USA Triathlon Elite Race Series in Monroe, Washington

Sarah Groff has had a long road to her first ITU World Championship Series podium last weekend at Kitzbuhel. Nobody had a brighter smile than the 29-year-old known as Saucy and Groffy to her coach Darren Smith and her squad mates